


Teen Wolf, Season 2, Episode 1, Omega

by TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Analysis, Episode Review, Episode: s02e01 Omega, Meta, Nonfiction, Season Premiere, Season/Series 02, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-20 07:55:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16132967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer/pseuds/TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer
Summary: Warning: Contains spoilers for the episode and the rest of the series. Complete.





	Teen Wolf, Season 2, Episode 1, Omega

Open to Jackson emerging from a creek in the woods.

This opening here is the one thing, if Word of God is never going to come out and answer, that sort of makes me wish Jackson had stayed around for longer. Was Jackson originally going to be a Dread Doctor experiment? Was there ever going to be a flashback showing how and why he came to be in the water? Did he and Derek roughhouse after the bite, and he ended up swimming away only to swim back once Derek was gone? Is this something Scott thought was suitably dramatic, possibly due to his own subconsciousness awareness water= usually bad?

On this note, I originally said stripes=possession, and this was a simplification. Stripes are a sign of (a) corrupting influence(s) overtaking a person. Likewise, water is usually bad, but sometimes, if Stiles is around, it’s not. Water saved him and Derek, and it was responsible for the start of them truly bonding.

Back to Jackson, his shirt is torn oddly, and it’s revealed he has a bite on his side.

Peter bit both Scott and Lydia on the side, but he offered it to Stiles with the implication he’d bite Stiles’s wrist/hand/arm. I’m not sure if O’Brien’s lack of shirtlessness during Teen Wolf, the idea Peter touching a teenaged boy’s side even over the shirt would be too creepy, or if it’s something about Stiles himself. Boyd was bitten on the side, too. I could be wrong, but I think Liam was the only teenager shown actually receiving the bite, and I do know his was on the arm. Victoria was bitten on her upper torso.

There’s a cool shot of the moon reflected in the water.

Then, there are some awesome shots of trees, birds/bats are flying, and Scott is running around on all fours. He jumps across a ravine.

This leads to a flashback of Chris threatening Scott with a gun in order to get Allison to promise never to see Scott again.

On the one hand, I fully believe Chris wouldn’t be above doing something like this. There’s nothing out-of-character for any of them going on in this scene. In addition, most scenes involving Chris, I tend to think veer towards accurate due to the fact Chris was driving the car when Scott and Alec talked.

However, I’m not sure I buy this. Maybe, they stopped at a convenience store, Chris went in, and Scott told Alec a few things he made clear it wouldn’t be a good idea to bring back up when Chris came back out.

I do believe Chris and Victoria made it clear Allison wasn’t to see Scott, and I do believe she agreed before promptly disregarding this. I’m just not sure it was as dramatic as this.

After this flashback, Scott runs through suburban streets on all fours, possibly causes some car accidents, and at one point, it’s raining on one side of a fence but not on the other.

This is a real thing, but it’s sort of eerie here.

Jumping up onto the Argent roof, he rolls/flips into Allison’s room.

Noisy neighbours exit. Chris and Victoria would likely hear about a human-figure running on all fours through their neighbourhood before they even got home, and if anyone saw something roll through the Argent’s window, especially if they knew white, teenage girl Allison was home, they’d either be calling the police, coming over to check that Allison was alright, or both.

I’m not sure what gun laws for private citizens are in California, but if said neighbours owned guns, there’s a chance they might also come over armed.

All this said, I don’t think this unreliable narration so much as Scott and Allison were both idiotic teenagers who happened to get lucky.

After this, new credits appear.

Over at the hospital, there’s a gross scene making it clear Stiles is having a sex dream. The fact he’s brought balloons would be cute if not for the fact I tend to get irritated over anything bringing up his crush on Lydia.

Oh, and Melissa is definitely wearing different scrubs than the ones she wore most of last season. Last season, they were dark blue, and here, they’re light purple. I think she might be wearing the same jacket over them, but I’m not sure.

In Lydia’s room, a man asks if she wants help getting in the shower. The charitable explanation is he intended to call a female staff member and just didn’t do a good job of making this clear. The less charitable explanation is he deserves so much worse than the glare and sarcastic answer Lydia gives him.

Going out, the man exposits to Melissa about Stiles being there all night, and she exposits back about him being there all weekend.

Admittedly, this is something Stiles would do for anyone he deeply cared about. He might not bring a balloon, but he’d definitely camp out in the hospital until they were ready to be released.

Stiles wakes up.

Over at the Argent’s, Allison and Scott are getting hot and heavy, a lamp is broken, and then, he hears her parents’ car pulling into the driveway, possibly because someone called about the human-figure running on all fours through their neighbourhood.

Victoria comes in, and Allison rightfully lays into her about her not knocking. Victoria ignores her daughter’s sarcastic unhappiness, and suspecting Scott might be in the closet, she opens it to put the dress she brought for Allison to wear to Kate’s funeral inside. He’s not, and she looks out the window, but on the roof, he manages to stay out of sight.

Back at the hospital, in the shower, Lydia’s bite is shown, and black blood begins to fill the water at the bottom.

In the lobby, Stiles is shown through a mirror before he destroys a vending machine. If anyone has meta on what his deal with vending machines is, I’d be happy to read/listen to it.

Interestingly, he tries to get Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, and it’s established later on both he and Peter like these.

This also might be an early sign of Stiles’s inhuman strength.

When the machine falls, Lydia hears it, and for all I don’t like Stiles’s crush, I do think the connection he and Lydia later share is wonderful. This is the first real sign of it starting to manifest.

In the tub, Lydia sees the black-blood water, and when she reaches in to pull the plug, she keeps getting hair on her hands. Then, a burnt arm grabs her, and she screams.

Stiles hears before anyone else, and rushing in, he shoves past Melissa and the earlier guy.

Inside, the water is clear, and Lydia is gone.

There are several outside shots, and then, werewolf Scott hears banshee Lydia’s screaming.

At the hospital, Sheriff S and Melissa have what might be there first actual scene together. He has trouble wrapping his head around the fact Lydia is apparently running around naked. He orders a deputy to get an A.P.B. put out for a sixteen-year-old redhead, and coming over, Stiles gives a thorough description of Lydia’s physical stats, including the fact she’s actually strawberry-blonde.

I don’t know, I’ve always viewed Roden as a redhead, but given Stiles insists this several times over the series, maybe, I’m wrong.

Having no patience for his son’s crush, Sheriff S sends Stiles home.

I don’t have any patience for Stiles’s crush, either, but I’d hope, if I had a kid whose crush was recovering in the hospital, or worse, was supposed to be but then had suddenly disappeared, I’d be more supportive and sympathetic than Sheriff S is here.

Out in Roscoe, Scott is waiting, and Stiles gives him the gown Lydia was wearing. Scott promises he’s not going to let anyone hurt her.

Then, Allison appears. Scott’s worried about them being seen together, and Allison doesn’t care. “She’s my best friend, and we need to find her before they do.” She tells them Chris and some other men left the house in two SUVs. “Hunting party.”

I believe Chris and other hunters were looking for Lydia, but there’s a line Chris has later in the episode implying he’s going to kill her, and I don’t believe that happened. I’m not sure he might not have kidnapped her and tried his best to have her die in his basement if he could have swung it, but once she did become a werewolf, which is what he believes has happened, I think he was just going to threaten her and maybe do a some torturing to make sure she understood what he’d do if she ever hurt a human/continued her friendship with his daughter.

I’m absolutely not saying he’d be right to threaten/torture her or that the trio shouldn’t try to stop him, but there is a big difference between that and killing.

Really, I’m not sure most of this episode didn’t happen when Chris was in the bathroom, trying to find a certain snack, talking to a cashier, etc.

Stiles starts driving, and at Allison making it clear her family won’t tell her anything, he announces, “Okay, your family’s got some serious communication issues to work on.”

Truer words…

There’s a funny shot of Scott sticking his head out the window, and Posey does good at occasionally infusing dog-like behaviours/qualities into Scott.

Over in the cemetery, Isaac Lahey is digging Kate’s grave with a tractor. Her full name is Katherine Argent, and she was between 27-29 when Peter clawed her throat out.

I don’t know the typical protocol for when graves are dug, but Isaac doing this during the night makes sense. Someone probably realised there might be problems due to people having objections to a serial killer who also murdered children being buried in their town. So, Isaac either deciding or being directed to do this at night makes sense if the goal is try to avoid other people showing up to protest.

Inside the tractor, Isaac’s listening to music, and he has a black eye.

Something tingles his spide-y senses, and he sees a clawed hand briefly touching a grave.

This may or may not have been Kate. It’s possible she was running around wild before someone caught her and transported her to Mexico.

On another note, there’s a possibility Scott and Chris agreed to lie to Alec about certain things or that Chris didn't correct Scott on certain things Chris knew to be wrong. I’m not so sure Chris, Victoria, and possibly Gerard didn’t know Kate survived much earlier than the narrative says Chris and Gerard did.

If it wasn’t Kate, I can’t tell the exact skin shade/tone of the hand, but Kali might be a possibility. Malia is definitely a possibility. Deucalion, Ennis, and the omega are also possibilities, though, the hand did look somewhat feminine. I don’t think it was any of Satomi’s pack, but I can’t rule this completely out.

Someone attacks the tractor, and Isaac ends up trapped in the grave. He doesn’t completely freak out, but this does clearly wonders for his claustrophobia.

Managing to peek through, he sees something doing something near Kate’s headstone.

Then, Derek lifts the tractor away. “Need a hand?”

Near the Hale house, Allison shows why, despite some of what she and Lydia did to one another last season, they do eventually become extremely close friends. She’s trying to understand what being a werewolf will mean for Lydia, not so she’ll know how to take down Lydia, but so she’ll be able to understand and help her friend.

During this conversation, Scott explains werewolves are literally stronger when they’re part of a pack.

Then, Stiles accidentally gets Scott trapped by a tripwire, and as Allison and Stiles hide, Chris and other hunters appear. Here’s where he implies he’s going to kill her by saying he can handle one special circumstance in the form of Scott, but two, he can’t. He brings up bisection, and bisection is more Gerard’s thing than Chris’s.

Chris didn’t insist on cutting either Peter or Kate in half, and whatever his feelings toward both, I’d think if he normally did bisection, he’d insist on it with them, too.

Why didn’t you bisect Peter, Chris? Lydia still could have become a better person without all the trauma. I’ve never bought Malia being his daughter, and if Jackson or Liam was his son, the narrative never admitted this.

Chris leaves, and Scott gets himself down via his claws.

The next morning, Sheriff S is talking to Isaac and Isaac’s father. It’s established Isaac works for his father, and said father is rude. Also, rather the whole incident Isaac experienced, Sheriff S is here due to the K9s following Lydia’s scent to here.

Yet, the trio didn’t go to the graveyard, and the K9s didn’t go to the Hale house. Does this mean Scott was wrong, the K9s decided, ‘yeah, no way in hell are we going near that place again, here’s a graveyard, let’s take the humans here,’ or that Scott can’t keep his story straight with Chris still in the store?

Also, if it’s the second one, those K9s can’t catch a break.

I’m not sure if Sheriff S truly suspects Isaac’s father of abuse here, but he definitely doesn’t like the way Isaac’s being treated. He asks about Isaac’s eye, and Isaac claims he got it from practising for lacrosse. Trying to subtly put Stiles out as a potential safe person, Sheriff S adorably talks about how his own son is on lacrosse. Aw.

Isaac sees Derek lurking in the background.

Sheriff S asks about the grave robbery, and Isaac says “her” liver was taken.

Looking down, Sheriff S sees an unknown female corpse lying in a casket.

Did Kate take the liver, or was it the omega? Later, he confesses to taking attacking an ambulance but doesn’t say anything about the grave.

At school, Scott is wearing stripes, furthering my belief this episode is being narrated when Chris wasn’t part of the conversation. Maybe, at one point, Scott and Chris switched driving, and Chris took a nap.

He and Stiles talk about the stolen liver, and Stiles defends Lydia possibly eating it with, “It’s the most nutritious part of the body.”

Fresh livers, maybe, but how fresh was the one from the decomposing woman?

Also, Stiles has on a horrible shirt declaring his support of single moms with an image of a woman dancing on a pole.

I support single mothers, too, and for all my reservations about sex work, in the end, if a woman has other actual options and is truly making a free, non-coercive choice to be a part of said industry, I’m not going to get on her case. I feel deep sympathy for women, men, and especially children, the latter of whom should never be anywhere near such things, who are forced into such work.

The idea all single mothers have to resort to sex work and that the only way to help them/their children is by being a patron is gross, misogynistic, sexist, horrible, and this being fictional, I wish someone would beat Stiles upside the head.

Granted, my irritation here is sort of my own making, because, I never paid any attention to the shirt until someone else brought it up, and I probably should have known better than to read it.

During the third season, Isaac wore scarves, and I neither noticed nor cared until the internet wouldn’t shut up about it. On Cold Case, a friend stopped watching due to being unable to stand Lily’s hairstyle, and I really didn’t have an opinion on it or realise others might. In general, I rarely pay attention to wardrobe choices, and sometimes, I get cranky when everyone else under the sun does.

Naturally, this lines up perfectly with my obsessing over Melissa’s scrubs and trying to point out whenever someone is wearing stripes.

Over to Jackson arriving, he’s a jerk to the homeless omega going through a rubbish bin when the omega nicely comments his car.

If a person wanted to try to be charitable, it’s possible one dollar would buy a decent snack but not alcohol/cigarettes/drugs, but I’m going with he’s simply being an absolute jerk.

Inside, Isaac enters the locker room, and Coach shows genuine concern over Lydia. Putting a sign-up sheet for search and rescue, he says, if anyone finds her, they get an automatic A for his class.

As everyone is signing up, Scott and Stiles talk to Jackson. Being his normal charmless self, he alludes to his and Lydia’s sex life and makes as if he doesn’t care about werewolf her running around.

In chemistry, Stiles is worried Lydia might hurt someone, and he gets detention for talking. How Harris doesn’t get in trouble for saying aloud he’d like to strike a student, I don’t know.

Danny and Jackson are sitting together, and Danny notices Jackson has a bleeding black nosebleed.

In the bathroom, Jackson freaks out, and Derek appears. Jackson’s his typical self, but Derek comes off worse. Uncomfortable and clearly hiding some things, he’s unsupportive in saying Jackson’s body is rejecting the bite. Then, he just leaves the teenage boy he might have just sentenced to death all alone.

Out in the hallway, Scott watches Allison open her locker and read a note he left.

Nearby, Matt Daehler compliments Allison’s funeral dress, and she notices his camera. They both hear Harley and another girl talking about Kate, and when she leaves her locker, Scott pulls her into an empty classroom. She lets it show how much this is hurting her, and he’s genuinely supportive to the point this is probably how he wishes it happened.

In detention, Stiles is hyper-focused on the clock, but when it finally hits the hour mark, Harris insists he has another thirty minutes. Bringing up Sheriff S protecting him, he says Stiles is now his personal project and is going to benefit from strict discipline.

I’m not sure how he feels about what Sheriff S did, but in my view, this is the type of explanation/confession that’s obscured by sarcasm/meanness. For all Harris doesn’t like Stiles, he uses punishments to guide Stiles and, by extension, certain others closer to the truth.

Interestingly, Harris’s shirt might be described as stripped.

At the funeral, Scott is lurking nearby.

Chris and Victoria are protecting Allison from the mob of reporters, and Sheriff S and some deputies are making sure the reporters don’t get near where the service is being held.

Chris is wearing a stripped tie, signalling Gerard. He and Victoria sort of bicker about the crowd, and he reminds her this wasn’t his idea. Allison asks who they’re talking about.

“Just sit down, sweetheart,” Victoria wearily says.

Matt is shown to be in the crowd, and he ducks under the barrier. Amusingly, someone in the crowd sees, points this out, and Sheriff S/a deputy fails to pay attention.

Gerard’s first appearance consists of him doing what might only be the good thing he ever does in the series: Coming upon Matt taking pictures of his granddaughter, he destroys Matt’s SIM card and sends him off.

Technically, even this is morally ambiguous, but if someone crossed a police line to take pictures of my family member(s) in a vulnerable situation, I might have destroyed the $900 camera, and this goes double if any of the family members were underage.

Of note: Gerard might be wearing a stripped shirt under his suit, but this doesn’t matter. Gerard is one of the truly evil characters Teen Wolf has. Maybe, something a long time ago made him, but essentially, this is just who he is.

Going over to Chris, he greets, “Christopher.”

“Gerard.”

They share an awkward hug. His greeting with Victoria is slightly warmer.

Stiles shows up to lurk with Scott, and I’m wonder if Harris was trying to keep Stiles from going.

Later on, Gerard beats Stiles up, and Stiles shows normal human bruising. Was Harris worried Gerard would sense something about Stiles, and thus, he was trying to protect him? Or was Harris working with Gerard, and he was trying to make sure Stiles didn’t find out?

Meanwhile, Gerard introduces himself to Allison. She nods when asked if she remembers him, but it’s not clear if she does, especially since it’s established she last saw him when she was three. Making it clear he hopes she’ll call him “Grandpa”, he nevertheless says she can call him “Gerard” if it makes her more comfortable.

Over with Scott and Stiles, Stiles suggests Gerard might be a non-hunting Argent, but Scott correctly pegs him as reinforcement.

Then, Sheriff S appears. Not happy, he puts them in the backseat of a squad car. Someone comes on via the radio with a report of a heart attack victim being attacked in an ambulance. I’m not sure whether this heart attack victim was dead when they were being transported, but if they weren’t, they are now.

Scott and Stiles leave, and they aren’t supposed to be able to. In America, the backseat of squad cars are designed to be only opened from the exterior. If this happened, get it together, Beacon Hills County Sheriff’s Station.

Suddenly, it’s night, and in the woods, the duo sees the ambulance is sitting with lights flashing. Getting closer, they see the still dead body inside.

Stiles begs Scott to find her. “Just find her,” he empathises.

O’Brien does great here. Crush aside, Lydia is among the few people Stiles would burn down the world for, and he doesn’t care if she killed someone in a fit of werewolf moon-rage. What matters is she’s safe.

Scott runs off, and coming across the omega, he states, “You’re not Lydia.”

So, is Scott bad at tracking scents, or-?

They fight, and the omega runs off.

Back at the crime scene, Stiles is talking to his dad, and Lydia appears. When she shakily demands a coat, Stiles falls over in his attempt to take Sheriff S’s jacket off. Doing it himself, Sheriff S is responsible for the tradition of putting lost souls in Beacon Hills police jackets being established.

Elsewhere, Scott is chasing the omega near running water.

The omega gets caught in a trip wire, and appearing, Derek drags Scott away before Scott can help.

Gerard, Chris, and some hunters come, and Chris tasers him. He reverts back to human form, and Chris asks what he’s doing in Beacon Hills. He’s looking for the alpha.

Peter, Derek, Satomi, or Scott? I imagine word has spread about what Deucalion and his pack did, and so, even if they’re here, now, they wouldn’t have omegas looking to join them. Has there been stories about what Peter was doing? Has there been enough time for it to get out Derek has killed him and is looking for a new pack? Derek didn’t know, but do others know Satomi is in Beacon Hills? Or has Deaton been spreading the word of Scott’s alpha status before it even happened?

The omega insists the man in the ambulance wasn’t alive when he attacked.

Chris and Gerard tell the other hunters they’ve caught an omega, and Bourne does great here. I’ve said before he’s wonderfully at subtlety and showing Chris’s conflicted nature without making a production out of it.

When Gerard says the omega might have been killed out or is a survivor of a pack that was hunted down, Chris has some empathy. He wasn’t disowned, but he’s never fully been a member of the Argent family. As much as he tries to harden himself against Derek, he hates what Kate did to the Hales.

A long time ago, Chris had the same instincts Allison does: Protect people, and not every nonhuman person is bad.

Here, Gerard says, “Possibly alone by his own choice.” He looks at Chris. “Not a wise choice.”

Gerard has little use for Chris, but Chris might be a danger if not kept under control. Besides, Chris has Allison, and Gerard has hope she can be what Kate was.

Next, Gerard gets his broadsword.

Chris is visibly horrified, but he doesn’t stop Gerard from killing the omega.

Throughout this, Posey and Hoechlin are great. Scott reacts like a normal person would to all this, and Hoechlin has Derek tightly holding Scott. Part of it is restraint, but it might be his way of giving a hug, too. Until 212, he truly cares about Scott. He does a lot of things wrong, but part of his intent is always to protect Scott.

Here, he forces Scott to look. “Do you see what they do?” He says this is them, “Declaring war.”

For his part, Chris brings up the code, and invoking Kate’s death, Gerard says what he’s wanted to say for so long, “No code. Not anymore. From now on, these things are just bodies waiting to be cut in half. Are you listening? Because, I don’t care if they’re wounded and weak.”

Jackson’s shown coughing up blood.

“Or seemingly harmless.”

There’s a flashback of Scott and Allison together.

“Begging for their lives with the promise they will never, ever hurt anyone.”

Isaac’s shown going to meet Derek.

“Or some desperate, lost soul with no idea what they’re getting into. We find them. We kill them. We kill them all.”

Kate doesn’t deserve this, but not seeing his father clearly, Chris can’t blame Gerard for having his only blind, soft spot in her. In his mind, he wasn’t there for her, he didn’t do more to stop what she became, and he couldn’t bring himself to force their father to see. He choose to protect her and Gerard without realising who he was truly protecting in the latter case. His honestly believed his father always followed the code, and now, he knows what Gerard wants is wrong, but he’s trying to navigate things without directly going against him.

He’s hoping he can help with the grief enough he can bring Gerard back to the man he thought Gerard was.

This omega, homeless and likely mentally unstable, was an acceptable loss in the navigation process.

Fin.


End file.
